the brink

noun

: the edge at the top of a steep cliff

—usually used figuratively to refer to a point that is very close to the occurrence of something very bad or (less commonly) very good

He nearly lost everything because of his drug addiction, but his friends helped to pull him back from the brink.

The two nations are on the brink of war.

Doctors may be on the brink of finding a cure for this disease.

an animal that has been brought/pulled back from the brink of extinction

Examples of the brink in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In 1979's Mad Max and 1982's Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, starring Mel Gibson as the titular Max Rockatansky and set in the mid-1980s, Earth is still on the brink of total collapse. —Megan McCluskey, TIME, 22 May 2024

The Israeli offensive has also triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, displacing roughly 80% of the population and leaving hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation, according to U.N. officials. —Josef Federman, The Christian Science Monitor, 20 May 2024